Posted on 06/17/2011 12:03:09 PM PDT by massmike
A Tulsa police captain who disobeyed an order to make officers attend a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day at a Tulsa mosque was suspended without pay for two weeks.
His suspension began June 12 and will end June 25, according to a personnel order signed by Police Chief Chuck Jordan.
The Law Enforcement Appreciation Day was held March 4 at the mosque of the Islamic Society of Tulsa. Jordan has said the Islamic Society scheduled the event to show its appreciation for the officers' response to a threat against it. Officers have attended past events at that location.
In a Feb. 18 interoffice correspondence, Deputy Chief Daryl Webster told Fields that the event organizers needed to know how many personnel would be attending so that things such as food and tours could be arranged.
Webster said voluntary participation was preferred, "but should voluntary response not be up to task, assignment would be the next alternative."
Fields said in correspondence with a superior that he considered the order to be "an unlawful order, as it is in direct conflict with (his) personal religious convictions, as well as to be conscience shocking."
He also told his superiors that he would not require any of his subordinates to follow the order "if they share similar religious convictions."
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
I disagree. If it’s an unlawful order he has a duty to disobey it.
Probably as simple as the mayor is a liberal and the chief, like 99% of them, is a political hack who will do whatever his master tells him to do including ordering his men to seize your firearms.
Fair enough; what happens if it determined to be lawful?
Caesar doesn’t play by Judeo-Christian rules; legalized abortion is the law of the land (as were Germany’s Nuremberg laws).
Proud to make your acquaintance Sam. (offer of hand in FRiendship)
And he will lose his case.
“I disagree. If it’s an unlawful order he has a duty to disobey it.”
It was not an unlawful order.
I didn’t realize that you were the judge in the case. My apologies for intruding into your area of expertise. /s
Then the captain pays the price for following his conscience.
...The day "had nothing to do with any official police function. It clearly fell outside of the police department's policy on community policing, and based on comments made by police department officials in a closed door meeting, it was not 'community outreach' as it has been previously portrayed," the law firm explained."Rather, it included a mosque tour, meetings with local Muslims and Muslim leadership, observing a 'weekly prayer service,' and lectures on Islamic 'beliefs,'" the Thomas More Law Center explained. "The event was scheduled for Friday, March 4, 20011 – Friday being the 'holy day' or 'Sabbath' for Islam. In fact, the event was originally voluntary, but when not enough officers were willing to attend, it became mandatory."
The lawsuit alleges, "The event held by the Islamic Society involved Islamic proselytizing. The Islamic Society event was advertised as including Islamic proselytizing, and it in fact resulted in the proselytizing of city police officers who attended the event."
...According to the new Tulsa lawsuit, images of some police officers appeared later in a publicity photograph used by the mosque to promote "Islam classes for Non-Muslims."
The Thomas More Law Center, which already is involved in other litigation defending the religious freedom of Christians as well as "countering the infiltration of radical Muslims in America," said it was working with Tulsa attorney Scott Wood to defend Fields' "constitutional right not to become a propaganda prop for the local mosque."
Please cite the law that he would have violated by doing his job and entering the mosque?
Look it up yourself. You are the expert.
Why would you think that he will lose?
“Why would you think that he will lose?”
A court will not want to set a standard where public servants and emergency responders can refuse to conduct assignments due to a religious conflict.
Do you want Muslim firefighters to refuse to extinguish a fire a a Christian families home?
Do you want a Christian paramedic to refuse to give medical aid to non-Christians?
Do you want Aryan Nation police officer to refuse to enter a synagogue during an emergency?
Do you want a Christian paramedic to refuse to give medical aid to non-Christians?
Do you want Aryan Nation police officer to refuse to enter a synagogue during an emergency?
Extinguishing fires and rendering medical aid are legitimate duties of public servants.
No reasonable person would tolerate a public servant refusing to enter a synagogue (or anywhere else) during an emergency... but that's not what we are talking about here, is it?
These officers were asked to volunteer for a public relations function. When the requested 9 could not be raised, they were ordered to go.
Unfortunately, for the Chief and the city, it involved religious services.
Read Everson vs Board of Education because they will most likely be appealing to it in their lawsuit.
"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'" 330 U.S. 1, 15-16. -- Justice Hugo Black
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